I dunno--with Rapaire fresh out of gaol and Hack in the brig for sassing, I am beginning to worry about the moral fiber of the MOAB. IS there something about our constant focus on BS that might be corroding the moral sensibilities around here? Stilly, did you get your gro-lites for the cellar okay?

Mid-day EST is well past the yardarm in Clifden, you know. The brown stuff could already be flowing freely, accoutning for the prepositional miasma of his last post. It is fun to watch him become a leprechaun for a season, though. I am glad to see he has been let out of gaol, assuming he really was posting, and that from Clifden. On the Internet, it could always be a dog...

Here is Shane's last post from the 85 Billion thread, in its entirety, unexpurgated and compleat:

"Rapaire is scairt! He has ran away to flippin' England and I am back in charge of this here thread, eh? Things are gettin' back to normle aroudn here now becoz the bolthole Rapaire got scairt off by me becos he knkows I would clean his clock and boot his flippin' ass right outta town if he dared to, like, shown his face. His day is OVER, man. OVER. Shane is back in charge, eh? I rule. I am the Chief. I ROCK.

- Shane "

I note that Shane got the country wrong, Rapaire, as you are in Ireland, not England. He's never been too strong on geography, but I'm surprised he made that specific mistake, because Shane's family background is Irish and he's proud of it! It must have just been inattention on his part. Maybe you will have the good fortune of meeting some of Shane's distant relatives on your visit to the Emerald Isle.

LH, I was trying to draw our bragadocchio Rapaire out with that line. I purposely did that line from the Croce song, not mentioning Superman's cape or Lone Ranger's mask so that maybe he would jump in and offer a first-hand account of having his own personal cape tugged or mask pulled off.

Didn't seem to work. He must be having a really good vacation business trip. Whatever.

I promptly took 3 - count 'em -3 more and got loopy enough to go to sleep on the fiberglass bench behind the bridge cabin to avoid the embarrassment.

Not one of my finer moments.

I was in good company, however. Two fellow sufferers stand out in my memory. One was a pretty, young, Amish girl, in her immaculate grey dress, white apron, and bonnet of white netting. She was on her honeymoon. She was just as seasick, but demur and graceful in her distress, unlike this 'ol clodhopper of a hillbilly. The other was a man in his late 30's who had a son with him about the same age as my then 10 year old Sum Yung Sun. Both he and his son were very seasick. The man had served for 4 years in the Navy in the Pacific on small patrol boats not much bigger than the fishing boat we were on. He had never been seasick before.

Want me to tell about the time I puked at the very tip of the bow of one of those big party fishing boats out on the edge of the Gulf Stream? My head, of course, was just upwind. The 50 fisherman along the rail that were downwind....well....

I'm just funnin' with you, Amos. ;-) I know you love to say that word "sirrah" in that type of context.

I think Rapaire should know that Shane has been going all over Blind River and surrounding areas telling everyone who will listen that he has "scairt Rapaire clean out of the flippin' country". He is in his glory. He thinks Rapaire has fled North America in fear of what Shane might do to him if he got "aholt of him". Yes, the lad is boasting about it all the livelong day.

They were flying the turn to seven then, You could hear those horses thud, Lord, how the air was full of cries, And flying sweat, and mud. They were fighting hard for every yard, Hot enough to burn off paint, And the betting men were lookin' grim, While the gals commenced to faint.

The ponies sweated, strived and strained, As they thundered into the bend; They had full three hunnert more to go, Afore they saw the end. Their eyes rolled wide, the hot foam flew, As they hurtled past the stands. And the muscles on their mighty necks Rippled like iron bands.

Brown Derby ran like a beast possessed, With a heart that could not fail. And his jockey heard, like the drums of hell, Bright Glim there, on his tail. And back in third, jes' taking her time, Was the shadow of Big Mom, Eating the track with a long, slow stride, Like a slowly ticking bomb.

The 'caster he was hollerin' loud Over the old PA, It was more a fearsome, awesome roar, There wasn't too much he could say. The storm of those mighty muscles flew Like tornados under glass, And the watchers chewed their nails, and prayed And yelled, as they thundered past.

Oh, THAT post. I do apologize. By the time you accused me of using the word I had completely put my ind onto other things. But that was intentionally using the word for the exact purposes you say, so I really don't see what you are complaining about.

MOM is so glad to finally hear from Rapaire. I bet he sent her some postcards. They won't arrive until after he gets home, though.

Seems a wacko in North Carolina, mentioned here briefly a week or two ago, has taken to complaining to mudcat management about s t a l k i n g (says I'm doing it--I'm spacing it so it doesn't appear in a search.) Woman is fu*king nuts. Gone round the bend. Apparently if we both end up on the same thread she thinks she is being attacked. Even if I was there first. Amazing.

Amos! Your facade of scrupulous honesty and objectivity is slipping. You, sir, did indeed say "sirrah" to me. It is in your post on this thread of 25 May 08 - 11:23 PM. Scroll down and look. You frequently use that word when you are attempting to become high and mighty with others.

A (presumably) unmated male mockingbird has been singing his heart out all night for the last three mights. I'm thinking of printing out a copy of MMario's peonies to show him. How could he not fall in love with such a fair flower?

While you two are in watching movies and waving lace hankies about I've been out cleaning the garage. It was so cute. Did you know that MOM kept some of your baby toys? Those little wood and leather toys, some with quaint lead paint and strings for pulling them around the floor.

Sir Hawk, what are you ranting on about? I did not use the word, "sirrah", have no perfumed hanky, and only resort to traditional formalisms in order, occasionally, to chastise, reprimand or educate you, when you show need of such things. I do not know, just now, why you are acting out the long-dead ghost of some tin-hat drill instructor or perhaps a Chinese Red Youth community leader, but I assure you I will not drop, nor give you twenty, nor even give you one. So, if this bothers you, you may go piss up a rope.

Heh! Forgive me, Amos. I just finishing watching that movie "Mr Woodcock", and I got in the drill sergeant mode. I find it funny to do that because it's so utterly unlike anything I would ever wish to be.

And spare me the effete use of words like, "sirrah". What do you think you are anyway, the 5th Musketeer? Do you also have a perfumed lace hanky tucked flamboyantly in your shirt pocket which you pull out and wave now and then when making a particulary cogent point, this calculated to win the applause of the admiring throng that daily here witnesses your heroic monologues?

And even if you are not ashamed of your parochialism, you should be embarassed at the paucity of high-quality BS you have been putting out lately. You are resting on your laurels, thinking you will always be held in high esteem for your generation of such wondrous things as BDiBR/Shane, Chongo, and the fictitious Shatner.

But you should bestir yourself, sirrah, for verily, I say unto you, the writing is on the wall, and no man may erase it by a jot or a tittle. Fame is fleeting, and gloria mundi has married someone else by now. Stir your weary, aging bones, and make your Mom proud!!

Little Hawk, you should be ashamed of your parochial bias. There are many here among us in the US who pronounce these words almost exactly the way you do, except without the "Eh" after each one. There are others who pronounce them with strong Persian, Korean, Formosan, French, Hispanic, German, Swiss or British accents. Somehow, you know, we manage to communicate all right anyway, without mocking each other. Eh?

Leo, early this afternoon I set up a Google Group for the Mudcatters who garden who have been discussing it on the current gardening thread, but no one else has joined yet. Just me. Do you want to join? Visit http://groups.google.com/group/mudcat-gardeners and ask to join and I'll set you up. Members can invite other members, but I left it a private group that anyone can read.

I was looking for one place where we can all post our gardening photos and even each set up pages if we want, etc. It started because Bobert doesn't do digital or html pages and he sent me a couple of disks of some of his photos to post. I figured I'd rather put them at a collective mudcat place than on my photobucket pages.

"Lookit, Herman! Flars!" (delightful James Thurber cartoon of yesteryear, as powerful and aggressive woman drags on somewhat beaten-down and reluctant looking husband's arm, ecouraging him to join in her delight over the suddenly discovered presence of some flowers)

In other news in the world, science seems to discover that the past may be changed by what you choose to measure in the present.

"ThereŐs no way around it: The nature of light seems different depending on how itŐs observed. Light can act like a particle or wave, and all shades of gray in between. Now, physicists have the most dramatic demonstration yet that this range of behaviors between wave and particles really is unavoidable, and that light itself doesnŐt know what it is while itŐs propagating".

This is an intriguing notion, because it opens the door to the understanding that time itself, which we depend on completely to keep everything from happening at once, and to reassure us that an object is the same thing it was, and several other certitudes of human existence, may be in fact only the biggest of Big Lies ever told.